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Saturday, December 15, 2012

We love to talk about winter birds when talking about migration and hibernation! I will load some better pictures, but these highlight our window painting of birch trees and snow. Our cardinals are red construction paper, red feathers for wings, and black oil pastel for eyes. We cut small pieces of orange drinking straw and slid them onto the beaks. It was definitely a good activity for building fine motor skills. I attached a template of the bird and poem here.

The unit also coincides with our study of our country and state, Minnesota. Since the state bird is the loon, we also have a loon drawing station at the easel next to our cardinals. Black paper, oil pastels and red buttons for eyes and you have a loon!

We made lovely watercolors for the Minnesota state flower, the ladyslipper, as well. The idea of a state symbol can be complex, and recreating loons and ladyslippers help the children understand it better. Coming up soon is a template for the ladyslipper sentence starter--of course you could change it for your state flower!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

We are half-way through our readings of nursery rhymes. Each week we read a nursery rhyme, sing the Jack Hartmann song version (his CD is wonderful and so engaging), and do a writing activity. After reading "Humpty Dumpty," we finished the sentence starter "Humpty Dumpty sat on a ____." More nursery rhyme pictures and templates to come!